Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Don't lie about your college on your resume!
Yet another bigshot at a company has been forced to step down for lying on his resume. This is getting ridiculous. Here are some simple rules if you are trying to embellish your resume so that you won't get caught:
1. Never, EVER, lie about what college you went to. This is a lie that will haunt you FOREVER. Where you went to college will come up in conversations for the rest of your life. If you lie about this once, you have to keep lying until the day you die. Or retire, whichever comes first. This is why CEO's still get caught with their pants down and get humiliated forty years after they first lied. Once you lie about your college, you can't change it, because people remember things like that. Plus, at some point you're bound to run into someone who went to the same school that you claim you did, and then you'll have to work double-time to keep your lie hidden. It's best if you simply don't lie about the college you went to.
2. If you lie about your degree, you'd better do your homework. You're going to have to know classes that you should have taken, professors that you should have had, homework that you should have completed, etc. It's a lot of work to lie. Remember, eventually you're going to run into someone with the same degree from the same college, and you're going to have to be able to share stories with this person.
3. Don't lie about facts that can easily be verified. For example, HR departments have your exact job title and date/duration of employment on file. Any company can verify these facts very easily by calling the HR department of your former company. For many companies, this is the bare minimum that they will do, so it's easy to get tripped up on this.
4. Don't lie, just embellish subjective experiences. Everyone wants to look better on their resume, that's why they lie, right? You just have to be smart about it, and only lie about things that can't really be verified. Instead of mentioning that you stapled papers together everyday, you can say that you "created and assembled important presentations". If somebody tries to verify this information, they're unlikely to find someone who's going to remember if you really did that or not. It's probably not well-documented, or easy to look up.
5. As you climb the corporate ladder, delete old embellished items. As you gain more and more experience, and you start having real things to put on your resume, delete the older embellished items. Just completely remove them. They're old, no employer really cares about them, so you don't need them on your resume anymore. That way as you get higher up the ladder and thus become more visible, your "less true" experiences will no longer be listed and anyone out to get you won't be able to dig through your resume to find skeletons. There's nothing sillier than getting embarrassed because you left some old lie on your resume that didn't even help you get your current job.
Personally, I don't lie at all on my resume. I wouldn't recommend that you do it, either, because when you finally do get to that dream job you always wanted, chances are good that somebody you stepped on will go searching your resume looking for lies, and if you're not careful you'll be publicly humiliated.
For tips on writing a good legitimate resume, try this site.
1. Never, EVER, lie about what college you went to. This is a lie that will haunt you FOREVER. Where you went to college will come up in conversations for the rest of your life. If you lie about this once, you have to keep lying until the day you die. Or retire, whichever comes first. This is why CEO's still get caught with their pants down and get humiliated forty years after they first lied. Once you lie about your college, you can't change it, because people remember things like that. Plus, at some point you're bound to run into someone who went to the same school that you claim you did, and then you'll have to work double-time to keep your lie hidden. It's best if you simply don't lie about the college you went to.
2. If you lie about your degree, you'd better do your homework. You're going to have to know classes that you should have taken, professors that you should have had, homework that you should have completed, etc. It's a lot of work to lie. Remember, eventually you're going to run into someone with the same degree from the same college, and you're going to have to be able to share stories with this person.
3. Don't lie about facts that can easily be verified. For example, HR departments have your exact job title and date/duration of employment on file. Any company can verify these facts very easily by calling the HR department of your former company. For many companies, this is the bare minimum that they will do, so it's easy to get tripped up on this.
4. Don't lie, just embellish subjective experiences. Everyone wants to look better on their resume, that's why they lie, right? You just have to be smart about it, and only lie about things that can't really be verified. Instead of mentioning that you stapled papers together everyday, you can say that you "created and assembled important presentations". If somebody tries to verify this information, they're unlikely to find someone who's going to remember if you really did that or not. It's probably not well-documented, or easy to look up.
5. As you climb the corporate ladder, delete old embellished items. As you gain more and more experience, and you start having real things to put on your resume, delete the older embellished items. Just completely remove them. They're old, no employer really cares about them, so you don't need them on your resume anymore. That way as you get higher up the ladder and thus become more visible, your "less true" experiences will no longer be listed and anyone out to get you won't be able to dig through your resume to find skeletons. There's nothing sillier than getting embarrassed because you left some old lie on your resume that didn't even help you get your current job.
Personally, I don't lie at all on my resume. I wouldn't recommend that you do it, either, because when you finally do get to that dream job you always wanted, chances are good that somebody you stepped on will go searching your resume looking for lies, and if you're not careful you'll be publicly humiliated.
For tips on writing a good legitimate resume, try this site.
# posted by Chris @ 10:15 AM 
